Strong Children, Broken Men
by Splickedylit
Summary: You meet Karkat and he's a kid, half your age, but he takes care of you anyway. Your life is clean and clear and slow when he's around you, and you remember the parts with him in it and blur the places in between until you see him again. So this is the story; the bits you remember, the important parts of your life. The parts that had him in them. Gamkar, complete, warnings inside.


When you said you could take care of a kid for a dad of a friend of a friend of a friend while his parents were out of town for the night, this is not what you were expecting.

Vantas and his wife are outside when you get there—good thing, too, or you would've figured you had the wrong house. It's a church. Like, a real actual church, but with a big vegetable garden where the parking lot used to be and a mailbox put up in front of it. Vantas is a big guy, not all that tall but real broad, with a beard like he just forgot to shave and weird, red-lookin' brown eyes. He's got a tiny little real curvy wife with a shit-load of hair, goes right down to her ass and curls out everywhere. They both smile when you show up, too, and that's weird because nobody is happy to see you. People tell you you look like you're in a gang or some shit. You smile back, and he comes up and grabs you by the hand to shake so hard you go "—wow, fuck!" out loud. He just laughs.

"You must be Gamzee!" he says, and his wife takes your hand from him—she squeezes even harder than he does but at least this time you're ready and you can at least try to squeeze a little bit back. Holy shit. "Meulin should be back around eleven tonight, there's food to warm up in the fridge, if you can't find anything just ask Karkat. He doesn't need too much help getting along by himself, if you need anything he'll tell you what to do!"

"…'kay," you say, and that seems to be all you gotta say because he waves, they both get in the car and then they're gone before you can think of any of the questions that are still just kinda hanging out chilling in your head. Why do those fuckers gotta take so long getting to your mouth? Shit's not right.

So you turn around and walk up to the big wood door and just kinda…knock a little.

"_Who is it?_"

Hey, you got an answer, that's cool.

"Gamzee," you tell the door.

"_Are you a robber?_"

"Nope."

"_What are you_?"

You gotta think about that for a couple seconds, 'cause really you're, what, like, human. But that's probably not what he's asking, so you shrug a little bit even though the door can't see you.

"…like, a babysitter, I guess."

The door opens.

You can tell Karkat is his old man's kid, for sure. He's got a little round face with a bunch of dark hair and red cheeks and big, weird, bright red eyes. You look at him. He crosses his arms and looks back.

"You don't look like a babysitter," he tells you. He talks like a grown-up, and it should sound like he's just repeatin' shit he's heard, but it doesn't. Sounds like he knows what he's doing better than you do. "I bet you've got not a lot of money."

Ouch, man.

"Pretty much," you admit, and he nods. "They said you didn't need much help, guess that really means you don't need me at all, huh?"

"No," he says, "—you need to answer the doorbell and if there are any robbers you have to beat them up."

Oh. "I can do that."

"Yeah," he says. "I thought so. You look like a juvenile delinkent."

"Wow, thanks."

"Uh-huh."

He grabs you by the hand and you go kinda strollin' through their big church-house. "That's the kitching. That's my room. That's mom's and dad's. That's the church room. That's the bathroom. This is the living room."

He stops there in the living room and lets go of you, and you stand where he leaves you until he looks up, sees you still just kinda standin' there and pulls you down next to him.

"Here," he says, and dumps a bunch of little toy guys out on the floor. "I'm gonna be the invaders and you can defend the fort, okay? Okay."

So you do that for a bit. You aren't any much good at it, you think, but he keeps moving them back to the beginning and going 'okay, this time when I send a guy up to the gate you gotta not let him in because he's an _enemy_, okay?' and you think maybe by the time he kills all your guys for the hundredth time you're starting to kinda get it. You don't like to think about killing people though—makes your head hurt and your fingers all twitchy.

Maybe he notices that, because after he beats all of your guys that time he drops his toys and stands up again.

"We're having baths now," he says, and grabs you by one hand. Kid's got a good motherfuckin' grip. You stand up and sway a little and he puts a little hand on your leg and stares at you all solemn-like until you're steady again. "—you first. You smell bad."

"I do?" You take a whiff of yourself. You don't smell much of nothin', but you aren't real good at smelling shit these days. "Like what?"

He pauses, frowns, thinks it over.

"…like dead things on a big hot road," he decides, and grabs you by the hand again. Little man's short—you have to kind of bend over and take little tiny steps to keep up. He pulls you down the hallway all full of pictures and through a door into the bathroom, and that's where he lets you go.

"Okay, for baths we take our clothes off," he orders you.

You…feel like maybe that ain't a thing you should do, although fuck if you know why cause you probably do smell bad and he's right, you take your clothes off for a bath, right?

He notices you're stopped. For a second he glares at you, and then he seems to think of something and he sighs and shakes his head.

"Don't worry," he says, "…I won't touch your private bits. But you can keep on your underwear if you want. We can _compromise_."

Oh. Fair enough.

You pull your shirt and your shoes off and swing your legs over into their tub to work on your jeans, kinda shivering a little in the air. Some little bit of you that told you you might not want to get naked tells you you should cover up your tats, your scars…but hell, he's turned back around now and looking and it's too late for that.

"You've got pictures on you," he says, and pokes at one with a sticky finger. "…I don't like that one, the clown is creepy."

"Sorry, little dude, they don't come off," you tell him, and he huffs, annoyed.

"I like this one, though," he says, and he touches the spot right between your shoulderblades—the circles. "What are these?"

"That one in the middle's for keepin' bad sh—stuff away, like, evil stuff," you tell him, and twist around a little. You can't see where he's pointing, but you can guess his finger moves out to the next ring. Tickles a little. "…that one's the zodiac. Like, a bunch of animals and stuff up in the stars."

"I know." He traces a finger around the circle and then jabs at your back—you jump a little bit. Kid's got sharp fingernails. "I'm a crab. Cancer." His pointing finger softens a little—he lays a warm little palm on your back, covering up that tattoo. "…dad's got cancer," he says quietly. "…I wish I wasn't cancer."

Oh shit, seriously?

You think back a bit about Mr. Vantas's big white grin and scruffy beard and red-brown eyes. Doesn't look like a guy with cancer. But, like, he did have circles under his eyes like he wasn't sleeping real good…

"What are you?"

Uh, wait, okay, suddenly you're talking about a different thing. Takes you a second to get your brain all turned around.

"…Cap…capricorn."

"The goat-fish one," he says, and draws a circle around to the spot where your sign is, right on the knob where your spine sticks out on the back of your neck. You jump and then make it look like you didn't by shovin' your jeans off instead and dumping them next to the tub. He follows you, still poking at the Capricorn sign on the back of your neck. "Uh-huh," he says, like it's final and he'll let you keep it. "…I like it, it's all loopy like you are."

"Hey!"

"Are you cold?"

Oh. You are kind of cold, actually. Sittin' in an empty tub in your underwear ain't the most comfortable thing ever, and for all you don't chill easy, it's not the warmest either.

"I'm gonna start the water," he tells you, and strains for the shower head. You reach up and snag it down for him. "Tell me when it's warm enough."

So you have a warm bath, which is way nicer than any bath you've had for as long as you can remember. He gives you a running commentary as he goes, too, kid knows every step. "This is mom's, but you can use it, 'cause you're a grown-up," he tells you, "—it's head and body shampoo an' it smells like crisp sea foam." You look at the bottle. That's what it says, sure enough. "—put your head back, so you don't get soap in your eyes."

You do, and you don't. He's real careful, even when he has to put all sorts of stuff in your hair and kinda hack at it with a comb to get it smoothed out. You never get soap in your eyes. And it feels nice, like, real nice to have someone mess with your hair. Makes you want to curl up and go to sleep.

Next thing you know he whacks you on the shoulder.

"No sleeping in the tub!" he yells at you, as you kinda thrash around and get water everywhere, "—you'll slip in and you'll drown! Then I'd be in trouble and your mom and dad would be sad!"

Right, yeah, okay. Good. Not drowning. You blink hard and sit up a little straighter—he's rinsed your hair out while you were dozing, and started the tub draining. You look over at him, just in time to have a big fuzzy white towel shoved in your face. You pull it away and look at it; it's got a red crab on it.

You towel your hair off while he goes around putting away bottles and then he looks at you, totally motherfuckin' serious as the grave, and says, "…okay, now you go out. I'm going to have a bath."

"Hey…"

"I don't need help," he assures you, and pushes you a little bit. "Go dry in front of the heater before cold catches you."

So you end up standing around in front of a heater in the kid's room in your underwear, while he gives himself his own bath. You're pretty sure you're not doing this babysitting thing right—aren't supposed to like, get all caring, do stuff for him? Because it's been him taking care of you this whole time and goddamn you but you feel better than you have in a fuckin' year.

You're back in your jeans, flapping your shirt around in front of the heater to get the wet spots out, when he comes back in in a new little sweater and a pair of little jeans and says "Now we're gonna get dinner."

"Okay," you say, "—what d'you want—"

"I'm gonna make it," he says, and gives you this look like he's looking right through you and out the other side. "You can't cook."

"Hey, I cook okay!"

"No," he says, and he comes up and pokes at your stomach. You squawk kinda. "…if you knew how to cook you wouldn't be all skinny! You're all skinny, like a skeleton. Come on, we get food."

"Aw, come on," you say, as he takes you and pulls you off again, "—I gotta do something tonight, kid, I'm the one as is supposed to be takin' care here and you're doin' all the work! Ain't motherfu—ain't right."

"Oh." He bites his lip and frowns. "…okay. We can have pizza." He goes up to the fridge and picks up the envelope of money they left for you. "…we're gonna…yeah. We're gonna get a pizza. Can you get a pizza?"

You do. Callin' for pizza is at least something you kinda get, not like kids (not like this kid anyway). And while you wait, Karkat takes you around the house and shows you stuff. His room, which has got a lot less plastic fakey fake shit in it than the other kids' rooms you've seen, and a lot more books and maps and games you know you for sure wouldn't have gotten when you were a kid, 'cause you don't even get them now. He's a smart little bastard, and he knows it. He shows you his dad's office, which has a lot of atlases and big books from all sorts of religions and stuff, and notebooks all over everything with big, loopy, excited writing in them. There's a stained glass window over the desk, and you ain't nearly as high as you have been but you and Karkat still sit and stare at the colors for a bit together, just looking at them and running your hands from color to color.

Then the pizza shows up. The kid at the door is a guy from your school—freshman. You recognize his douche glasses and his hair. It's so blonde and his face is so pale he looks like he's been bleached all over (and then splattered with ink, goddamn, Striders and their freckles).

"Hey," he says, and hefts the pizza. "You're not Vantas."

"I'm takin' care of the kid," you say, and Karkat comes up to stand next to you.

"Dave," he says, "—you heinous asshole, this pizza is late."

Holy shit. You haven't been teachin' him that, have you? You don't remember sayin' any bad words, but hell, you've been losin' little chunks of time. Coulda happened.

Strider's mouth twitches up just a little bit at one corner. "Dude," he says, and squats down to talk to the kid face to face. "—you gotta stop that man, you're gonna get us both in trouble."

Karkat flips him off and snatches the pizza.

"Well that's that, I guess." Strider straightens up and holds out a hand. "You high, dude?"

Your brain is way behind your mouth, so your mouth just goes "Fuck yeah."

"Figured." Strider raises one eyebrow just a little bit, so it gets peekin' up over the top of his glasses. "Don't let Mr. Vantas know that."

"Why?" Karkat has grabbed the pizza and vanishes off into the house with it again—you can smell it and it is fucking _amazing_, god you love motherfuckin' pizza. "What's gonna come down on me if he does?"

"He'll worry about you," says Strider blankly. "…and get all disappointed in you, and try to take care of you. And you'll feel so bad you'll stop just so he'll stop looking at you like a kicked puppy."

Yeah, right. You've had people try to get you to quit before—nice of them, sure, real nice motherfuckin' thought, but it's not happening. You don't answer that, just hand over his money and he gives you that weird little smirk as he turns to go. Well, fuck him.

Karkat is already eating his pizza when you head back into the kitchen, but he looks up at you and shoves a plate in your direction, and you forget about drugs for a while because you have to talk to him about how a Makara is your name but also a thing from a story you heard once from your granddad, and next thing you know you're sitting in his dad's office with a bunch of atlases out trying to figure out where you're from and Karkat's mom is standing over you telling you it's midnight, she's sorry she's late, she'll pay you extra for your time. You didn't even notice time was passing, but you take the extra money anyway because why not.

You turn down the offer for a ride home, though.

Home is the shittiest house in the shittiest part of town, where somebody moved out but if you use the water as little as you can and don't try to turn on any lights or electricity or anything nobody notices some of the shit inside is still turned on. You have two couches and running water and a roof and there's even some furniture and stuff still sitting around. Your dad is still making money, wherever he is, and you're still getting some every month—but that's for going to school because you're gonna be a disgrace if you don't go to school, they said. So you use that for school and food and to snag more drugs, and you're set.

You weren't tired when you were hanging around with the kid, but you're clean and still warm from the Vantas's house and full of food and you take a hit of…something—whatever the fuck it is, it makes your head feel warm and buzzy inside—and collapse on the couch face-down and drift off on a cloud of motherfuckin' miracles.

You can't tell where your dreams start and the high ends, but you think you dream about stained glass windows.

You're poking around at the store the next day, hunting for stuff that's cheap and won't rot (no fridge, makes shopping a bitch), when someone goes, "Oh! Hello there!" and you look up and it's Mrs. Vantas. You're wearing the exact outfit you wore yesterday and you ain't shaved and your hair is going all every place it wants to and that didn't matter before and now all of a sudden in some kinda weird half-assed blurry way, it does. You want her to like you.

You want everyone to like you, but this is different. This is fucking _weird._

"Hi?" What are you supposed to call her, like…someone said her name once… "It's, uh, Meulin, right—?"

"Call me 'Lin'!" she says, and pats your face. "Karkat said he had a great time last time, I don't suppose you're free next Thursday?"

What?

You blink at her for a minute and then manage, "—uh, no, yeah! Sure. Uh, thanks—"

"No thank _you_!" she says, and bounces up to kiss you on the cheek and ruffle up your hair. "It's so hard to find someone who Karkat is pleased with, you have no idea. He's quite taken with you!"

Your chest goes all warm and soft and stupid inside.

"I…I like him too," you say, like a moron, and then go red up to your ears. "—uh."

"Oh hush," she giggles at you, "…kids your age are so embarrassed to admit you're happy about things, it's a tragedy! Just enjoy it, dear."

"Yes ma'am. Lin." Goddammit your brain is running in stupid happy circles and you're always so chill with _every-fucking-thing_ but what is it about this family? Jesus. "I'll. I'll be there."

You are.

This time you ain't as foggy as you were last time and you used some of your dad's sent money to get a jacket as doesn't actually look like you rolled around on the ground in it, and you have some time to talk before they have to head out the door to do whatever they're doing. There's a guy there with them, too—big tall guy, pointy nose, yellow button-up over top of, like, a black turtleneck, which is weird but hey, you ain't ever been one to judge and on him it looks pretty sweet. He looks at you over the top of his glasses and you wave at him. He raises his eyebrows at you and then waves back.

Tonight you're playing hide and go seek, except you're always hidin' and about four times you fall asleep in a dark corner and Karkat just sighs and goes "okay, I'm gonna teach you how to make Mac 'n Cheese."

Next time, you take care of him over lunch and then when his mom and dad get back and you're getting' ready to go his dad grabs a hold of you and says "—you're not leaving without dinner, are you?" And that's how you end up pulled back inside and sat down, kind of confused, in front of real actual stew that didn't even come out of a can.

Next time is like a week later, and then a couple days after that, and they can't totally even motherfucking _need_ you to come over this often, right? Why the fuck do they keep asking you to come over and, like, giving you their food and letting you hang out with Karkat if they don't need to?

It keeps happening.

You remember to eat, when you eat with the kid. You remember to haul your ass off the couch and change out of your shitty, smelly clothes when you know you're going over. He still gives you showers when you smell bad and now he tells you stories about all the signs on the zodiac going off and having adventures together, beating a big bad guy who's got a big gun and, like…travels in time, or something, kid's been getting a bunch of comic books from the library. Cancer is the leader, duh, because he's the smartest and the loudest little bossy motherfucker. But he takes care of all the other ones too, even when they're dumbasses and stuff.

He messes with your hair while he tells you stories though, so you don't hear half of them because you're too busy being made out of water and pure fucking happiness.

(You look at yourself in the mirror one day and it is the weirdest thing how you actually only have a little bit of big, black shadow under your eyes and how your cheeks actually don't look all thin and sharp like they used to.)

(You call Mr. Vantas 'dad' one day and then choke on your drink and he laughs and laughs and doesn't even get mad at you and Karkat nods a lot and says you should keep doing that, but you can't make it come out of your mouth again, shit's downright embarrassing.)

And you even keep yourself almost clean for those nights, when you have somewhere to be. You shoot up and drink shit and smoke whatever you can get for whatever you've got to pay with, but when you show up to take care of Karkat, even if you're getting one of those headaches or your stomach's curling up in knots or you've got acid tryin' to climb up your motherfuckin' throat and get friendly with fresh air, you manage to show up and spend a day with him and head home again and you don't even fuck it up.

Until the day you do.

You weren't planning on coming over today, and that's the thing, you weren't ready, you didn't have time, and you're dizzy and halfway out of your skull already when you get there. They're running out the door; Mr. Vantas looks kinda grey and sick and not good but you're so buzzed you just kinda grin and wave at them as they drive away, doesn't even come into your head to worry. He'll be fine, dude's tough, ain't a thing that can hurt him.

You last all of two hours before you duck out back and pull the stuff you bought last night out of your jacket for a smoke. It's stuff you haven't tried ever that you remember—they said most people shoot up with it, but needles ain't exactly your favorite thing—the smoke burns down your throat, nice and easy, and yeah, wow, you can feel that one already. Everything's going kind of…hot, all fuzzy, like you got nothin' to worry about at all and life's going to be just motherfucking fine.

You drift after that. Stuff happens. Isn't important. Nothing can even touch you, like—like _fuuuck, _yeah, everything's okay. You're gonna be just motherfucking fine. Everything's—

And then you're on your knees on the bathroom floor, puking your guts out.

The fuzzy feelings don't go all the way away but the way your gut is churning sure takes the edge off you feelin' like you're invincible. There's somebody standing there with you but when you start to try to sit up a little and turn to look, you hack and retch and puke some more. All the good stuff is slipping outta you and you're back to not having any more money for actual good food this month and your foot hurting where you tripped on air on the way here and…

…and Karkat…is…watching you.

Karkat is watching you, all black hair and big red eyes, and you only meet his eyes for a second before you have to look away because he's looking at you and you know he knows.

"…drugs are bad," he says quietly, finally, and you were so far off in your head you forgot his voice and the sound makes you jump and look up at him again. He looks at you like you _hurt_ him and it's like a fist in the guts. "That's bad."

"I…I know, but—"

"you're gonna die," he says, and it makes a chill go up and down you, how sure he sounds when he says that—or maybe that's just how achy and bad you feel, how you want to throw up again. "People take drugs until they take too much and then they die."

"I'm not gonna—"

"I'm calling the doctors," he says, and he starts to back away from you—you pull yourself most of the way up, blinking at him. "—you can't do that, you can't die, that's _bad._"

"Wait!"

He stops in the door. Turns a little bit back. You can't barely find it in you to sit up—but if he calls someone they're going to take your drugs and your house and you're gonna be stuck again with nothing, you'll have goddamn fuck-all and you just sort of half reach out to him and don't care if you sound as young as he is, like you're begging.

"…_please_," you say, and you're not even sure what you're asking him for, if you want him to not call or to not tell or if you just want to make sure he doesn't hate you now, that you're still friends, that it's still okay for you to love him, and them, and this whole motherfuckin' place.

He stops and looks at you.

He turns, and he comes to your side, and he stays next to you until his parents come home.

You'd forgotten that that would happen, in all your confused disgust and the tight churning in your guts from the drugs and from Karkat's disappointed eyes, you'd forgotten he wasn't the only one you disappointed tonight. (_And the worst part is you want another hit, you want to feel invincible and warm again, you want to not be scared_.) You can get up, and you do—you stagger your way down the hallway and past the lights I the kitchen where Karkat is talking, explaining—you make it to the door and you're gonna head home and you're gonna—you're—

You don't know what you're going to do, but you never get the chance to find out because a voice says "…Gamzee," really low and sad and quiet, and your heart drops right out of your chest.

Mr. Vantas is standing out by the steps to the door; he looks up at you, and it's a horrible echo of how Karkat looked at you, you want a hit and you want to die before you take another hit and you want to throw up again and you want to cry.

"Sorry," you say—it comes out a mumble, you can't look at him. "I'm—"

But he doesn't let you walk past him; he steps up in front of you, and he crosses his arms and looks at you until your raise your eyes to look at him. "I can't tell you what to do when the only person you're hurting is yourself," he says and you can't be chill when he looks at you like that, you can't numb it out. Holy _fuck_, just when you had something good— "—but this is my son. My _son_. And you can't take care of him when you're like this."

"Do…" you have to take a deep, deep breath on the words, it hurts so bad. "…should I…I guess I shouldn't come back, huh."

"I…don't know," says Mr. Vantas, really slow, and rubs his tired eyes. "…I…I'll have to think about it. Just…I'll talk to you about it later, alright? Please, just go home. For now, just…go home."

You lift your eyes, and Karkat is looking out the window at you, watching you like you're a stranger, like he doesn't know you. You don't throw up again but you feel cold and achy and terrible and it's a pretty close thing.

You go home, and your house is cold and dark and you are completely motherfucking _alone._

You don't actually know what really happens for a while out of that, because you spend the next couple of weeks lying on your couch staring at pretty colors or lying on your roof feeling okay with everything or running around doing stuff you don't really remember that leaves your shirt and your knuckles all bloody.

But you start to think clear again, _real_ clear when you're out with some kids who're willing to share what you couldn't find and someone disses Karkat's dad. Karkat's dad who's out there to help them, who works himself ragged on their motherfucking shit-heap lives and they spit on his name right there to your face and one of them laughs at the thought they'll kill him, at how he doesn't come so often, at how he gets more and more tired every day they see him, _we don't have to kill him, that old man'll kill himself, _good riddance—

You hit him so hard by the time the police get there you can't even tell if he's breathin' or not. A couple people try to stop you and you hit them too—it's easy, _so motherfucking _easy, _crushing—_

Someone hits you so hard your eye swells up, your ribs hurt like maybe something in you is cracked, by the time the last guy stops struggling you're bloody to your wrists and most of it from your own tore-up hands and you don't _care_. They had it coming.

The police don't see it that way. They don't like it much when you try to punch one of them either. Don't take it real good at all.

Long story short you end up locked up in a little tiny room pacing and cursing and punching the walls and hating everything and they won't even let you have another hit to take the edge off, motherfuckers so awful sure they're in the right all the time god_dammit—_

You don't know how they got Mr. Vantas, why he's there, when he came in, but they did and he does and when you turn around again there he is, just standing there, watching you take yourself to bits and scrape your bloody knuckles on the dirty walls.Just _watching_. Looks angry with you. Looks upset, _sad_ for you. Looks like you hurt him. You stop all at once and go still staring. What are you supposed to do? What can you even say?

He says first.

"…what if it had been Karkat?" he says quietly.

No matter how angry you are, that slices through and hits you hard—you hiss through your teeth and drag your fingers over the places you've smeared blood on the walls, like you can get rid of them like that.

"_Wouldn't hurt him_," you croak, and it comes out like a growl, all hoarse and broken-up. "_Not him._"

"You almost killed six people tonight."

Your hands twitch to make fists, your teeth grind so hard it makes your skull hurt.

"—_called you a—_"

"I don't really care what he called me," he tells you. "Look at me. _Look at me._"

You look. He's there, standing in the light. Solid and real and he still looks at you like looking at you hurts him.

"The _last_ thing I want you to do," he says, really quiet but like it's made out of stone, it's real as the ground you're standing on, "—is hurt people for me. Okay?"

You've had people call you the worst shit they could think of, you've been honest-to-god starving, you've been beat all to hell and back in fights, but none of them hurt quite as deep or as bad as this.

"Sorry," you get out, and you sound like a little kid, it's pathetic and you fucking hate yourself for it but you can't find any other way to make your voice come out. "…'m sorry. I was just—"

"I know." He comes up a little closer and looks at you, and you want to be stupid and young and have a dad again, you want to ask him to make everything okay. "I shouldn't have just let you walk away when I knew you were upset. I owe you an apology."

"Fuck, man," you say, and almost laugh. "…No, fuck no. I…you…"

"Gamzee."

Shuts you down dead. You nod and listen.

"I know people who can help you quit," says Mr. Vantas, very quietly, and you remember how Karkat looked when he found out and you take a deep breath and force yourself to nod.

Quitting is a horrible motherfucking idea and the worst fucking thing you have ever done in your life. You hate yourself, you hate the motherfucking drugs, you hate the people who are helping you, you hate how you feel sick and dizzy and out of your own head half the time and how you end up curled up on a hospital bed, choking on your own bile. You snap and swear at everyone who comes to visit you, but Kurloz just tilts his head on one side and watches you with this little smile on his face and Mr. Vantas looks sad and understanding and hums songs to you that quiet the buzzing in your skull and Ms. Lin tells you stories and Karkat just sits there and touches your hair, confident like he always is, telling you, "—you feel bad right now, but you'll get better. I'm going to sit here, so you better deal with it," until you have to laugh because he sounds like a little general giving orders.

You sleep a lot, and puke a lot, and scream a lot of foul shit at the people who try to help you, and maybe…sorta slowly…you think you get better.

When they let you out of the hospital there is nobody there. You get into your proper clothes and _out of there_ and then you stop in the parking lot and finally think about it and realize you're an hour's driving from home and you're sore and sick and tired and you've got no fuckin' car. Goddammit. You've got no phone either, and you're not going back in there to ask if you can use theirs—you're never going back in a hospital again, fuck.

So you start walking.

You're hiking slowly down the side of the road, not thinking about anything in particular except maybe how all your clothes don't fit anymore—you thought you were skinny before this, well you were basically completely motherfuckin' _wrong_ and now you can feel your ribs through your shirt—when someone honks their horn at you.

You don't really think about that, because people have been honking at you this whole time, like, if there was some other way of getting back to your house, you would. But there ain't, and you just flip off the road as a whole and go back to trudging.

Another honk, and then someone yells, "_Gamzee_!" and _that_ ain't something people have been doing much of for sure. A big beat-up familiar-lookin' car comes swerving off the lane and onto the side of the road and stops next to you and the door opens and…oh.

"Get in," says Mr. Vantas, and Ms. Lin hops out and takes your arm, kinda tugging you forward. You try not to let her for about a second and a half until then in the dark inside the car a little voice says "—Gamzee, come on." And you slump and let her get you into the back seat. Karkat is sitting there with a book on his lap; he puts it away and grabs you instead as soon as you sit down, pulls you over so you're sprawled all crooked across the cushions, and puts your head in his lap so he can pet your hair.

You fall asleep there, and you don't remember cryin' but you drift back to feel warm, strong arms lift you up onto your feet and your throat is choked and your eyes are swollen. You sniff hard and let him help you up the stairs and drop you onto something soft and cover you up with a blanket. People talk as you start drifting off again—someone crawls up next to you and pulls the blanket over them as well and you know it's Karkat, he's so warm.

"_Shhh_," he tells you, "—go to sleep, okay? You did a good job."

You sleep.

When you wake up, they're making pancakes and bacon and Karkat makes you take his because he says you're too skinny and it's not allowed. You take his word for it, because he's the boss, and your stomach kinda churns the stuff over a bit but you don't even throw up. Well, you do, once, but only the one time and it's not all that bad and Ms. Lin follows you up and pats your back and makes little sad, comforting noises at you until you're done.

They never tell you to go, and you hang out with Karkat all day while Mr. Vantas goes out and talks to people and raises money for stuff, you guess, and Ms. Lin goes to work. Karkat gets down his book and he teaches you stuff. You teach him how to juggle. And then it's night and there's chicken and mashed potatoes for dinner, and then before you can even say 'maybe I should get home', they're waving you back to the big, soft couch in the living room with a blanket and you're falling asleep again, confused and warm and full and happier than you ever remember being in your life.

Another day happens the same way. This time you at least kind of try a little bit to remind them you ain't their son, you're kinda a dirty no-good motherfucker and you don't really belong here—and they laugh and shake their heads and tell you to wash your hands for lunch. Another day. And another.

You're in Mr. Vantas's study, all of you listening to Karkat talk to you about how he would take over the world and how he would make great big weapons to do it, when the doorbell rings.

"Gamzee, go see if it's a robber," orders Karkat, and goes back to explaining his superweapon to his dad. Mr. Vantas grins at you and nods. You don't really figure it's gonna be a robber and you don't know what you're gonna do if it's not, but you get up and walk downstairs, swing around the corner to the living room—

There's a lady in the living room, in a dress like she's going to a fancy dinner and a big scarf…shawl…thing, all gauzy and green and black. She's even taller than you, and she looks around at you and you feel really small all of a sudden.

"My goodness," she says, "Who are you?"

"Uh…" She belongs here a lot more than you do—you feel small and awkward. "…Gamzee Makara. Ma'am."

"Porrim," she says, and offers you a hand. You feel like you're meeting a queen. You take it and kind of shake it a little bit, and she smiles at you. "I knew your grandfather, I believe."

"Man, you did? Sorry," you say, and she laughs.

"He was a crude and ill-favored man," she says, and tips your chin up to look at you. "…but I have heard you are a good friend to my grandson and I'm thankful."

Oh. _Oh._ This is Karkat's Grandma. He's told you a lot about her, she's really rich and really classy and travels a lot and now that you've actually seen her…yeah. You're 100% sure she's _definitely_ a queen.

"You're welcome," you say, kind of small, and she nods and lets go of your chin again.

"Now," she says, "…I'm going to go and bake with Karkat. Do you bake?"

Oh fuck, you haven't had a chance to bake in a hella long time. "Yeah!" you say, a little louder than you mean to, and she laughs at you again—you should mind she's laughing at you, but you don't. She doesn't mean any harm. "Yes ma'am!"

"Excellent." She takes off her scarf and tosses her head and yeah, you like this lady. "Come along then. We are going to make some cookies, and we are going to bake the shit out of them."

"Mom!"

"Grandma!"

Karkat and Mr. Vantas come past you at a run and Karkat's grandma leans down and hugs both of them at the same time, laughing and kissing their foreheads. You kinda ease backwards out of the way until Karkat pulls out of the hug, grabs you by the hand, and you all troupe off towards the kitchen to bake the shit out of some cookies.

You have to go home eventually. Mr. Vantas tells you you don't, but you do—your house is cold and dirty and dark and shitty but it's yours. And theirs isn't, that is not your home, you don't fuckin' belong there. But they do make you take containers full of food, and a big sweater and also clean underwear and a really crappy cell phone that's old and dumb and still the nicest piece of shiny-ass techno-shit you've ever owned. Your house sucks, but those make it a little bit better, and it's not so bad in the dark.

…oh.

There's someone sleeping on your couch. Some kid you've never seen before, fancy clothes but miserable-looking and dirty. Probably a runaway or something.

A couple of months ago you would have beat him up and taken everything he's got and then thrown him out. A few weeks ago you would have woken him up with a beating and kicked him out.

You let him sleep.

The next couple of months are the best of your life.

The kid who was squatting in your house turns out to not be halfway bad—kind of a brat, name of Eridan. He leaves again a few days later after he gets tired of no heating and food eaten fast and unheated out of its containers, to keep it from rotting. Few weeks later he's back—his mom and dad won't buy him a car and he's _leaving_, he is so _done._

Well that's pretty dumb, but whatever. You let him sleep on your not-as-nice couch until he gets tired of being poor as dirt again and heads back home, and you go to Karkat's house almost every night of the week.

Every so often Mr. Vantas is missing when you come over—Karkat tells you solemnly that he's in the hospital, that he's sick again. His blood is…the wrong shape? And it gave him a cancer in his…liver? Karkat seems to know what he's talking about but you don't get it, and it doesn't stick in your head. Mr. Vantas is missing, sick in the hospital again. You teach Karkat the fragments of foreign words you know from your granddad, and you both work not to worry.

You're the oldest kid at Karkat's tenth birthday party, but that's okay because the party is the shit. It's mostly you and Karkat and some of his family and his grandma comes too, which is awesome. He's got almost the same birthday as his dad and they have the party on the same day, so there's cake and ice cream and Grandma brings a pie, which is your very favorite thing in the whole fucking world and you tell her so. She tells you you are a wonderful boy and offers you the biggest slice. And then you go and play video games with Karkat and his other friend who's his sort-of cousin even though they're not related? He's got an uncle who's not really his uncle, just one of his dad's very very very best friends, and the kid totally kicks your ass at every game you play and laughs at you both the whole time.

Going home gets a little bit harder every time, but you manage it again and wave at them as you walk away, and wish Mr. Vantas could have been there for that kind of bitchin' party. He would have liked that, you'd bet. Might've made him smile. He doesn't smile a lot these days. He's always real tired and kinda sad.

You dig some random old pen out of your pocket and write on your hand to remember to go up and tell him happy birthday some time, maybe bring him some pie, and then you duck through the door, tell Eridan to go to sleep, and crash on your couch.

It's one in the morning and your phone is ringing.

You're passed out on your shitty couch with one of your nasty headaches, but your phone is right next to your ear and you groan and swat at it and then eventually pick it up and shove it towards one of your ears.

"_Nnnngh,_" you say.

"Gamzee?"

It's Ms. Lin. She sounds quiet and breathless—she sounds…scared. Or upset? You sit up, shaking off your headache. "Yeah? What's up?"

"We…I…" her voice sounds all wrong, all thick and chokey and you're already getting up, pulling on your jacket. "—I need you take care of Karkat for a little while, I-I…"

"Ma'am."

"—not sure I can—oh god…"

"Hey!"

She quiets down a little—her breath is all shaking in your ear.

"I'm already comin' over," you tell her, and duck out into the night. It's so cold, your breath is steaming. "What's going on, what happened?"

"My husband had an attack last night in the hospital," she says, painful and slow, like she's hurting with every word. "…he…he had a stroke, he…"

You're still running, you're still running but you can't breathe. You can't ask, but you don't need to because she finishes in this little shaky whisper that rips your heart right out of you.

"…he's…dead."

You all drift.

Nobody seems to know what to do with themselves without Mr. Vantas to take care of you all. Everyone just kind of wanders, like you're all asleep on your feet. Everyone stares at each other like they've never seen a human before. Everybody's got red noses and swelled up red eyes.

Everybody except Karkat.

Karkat hugs his mom when she cries. Karkat calms you down when you get angry because it's not _fair,_ it's not fucking _fair—_Karkat cleans up his dad's study when everyone else twice his age sits around being useless. Karkat gets his mom on the phone with the funeral people, talks to his aunts and uncles and his grandma and tells them the plans, he's _ten goddamn years old_ and he takes the whole thing on his shoulders and you feel like a piece of shit.

Nobody asks you to, but you dare to come to the funeral anyway. You don't have a fancy suit or anything, but there's a lot of people who don't—kids he helped, people he took care of, they can't all afford to dress up nice. You remember the lessons he used to teach, and figure nobody who thinks how people dress matters deserves to be here anyway.

You don't hear most of what's said, in the end. You're too busy thinking and you miss hearing people talk, but you can't not listen when Karkat slides off his chair in his small black suit, stands up and walks up to stand in front of you all.

"My dad was sick," he tells you all and his little voice is loud and strong over the silence. "His blood cells were all bent and wrong and he had cancer too, and that's why he died." He looks down at his hands—they're clenched in little fists in front of him. "…just, if anyone didn't know," he says, "…I thought you should."

"…so now he's gone."

He glances back at the coffin and his mouth goes into a thin little line—you hold on tight to your knees instead of goin' to hug him—he's got his pride. He'd never let that go.

"We're gonna remember him, though," he tells you all, and when he says it like that it can't be anything but true. "How he helped everybody, and made them feel all warm inside even when he was yelling at you. And how he loved us all a lot, even the ones who made him upset when he was throwing up and hurting really bad. I'm going to try to be as good as he was, and you all should be too."

He chews on his lower lip for a second, and when he starts to talk again his voice _almost_ breaks, just this little hitch of a sob that tears your heart straight out of your chest.

"…dad—dad was a good man and I'm going to be a good man too. Thanks."

He steps down quiet, to the soft sound of sobbing from all around. He walks back to his seat, quiet. He listens to the other speakers, watches them bury the casket, quiet except for this tiny, shuddery little noise when the first shovelful of dirt hits. He stays quiet through the wake, but you can almost feel how stretched taut he is and when he leaves you follow him out.

You find him curled up like the kid he is, crying into his knees in his dad's empty room with the stained glass window he was so proud to show you, and you pull him up into your lap and rock him back and forth until both of you cry yourself to sleep under a big puddle of stain-glass light.

When you wake up, there's someone standing over you and Karkat's still curled up in your arms. Your neck and the collar of your shirt are all damp and he's holding on so tight in his sleep you don't know you could pull him off if you wanted to. You lift your eyes a little, and it's the boy you saw at the funeral, face that looks like Karkat's—or Karkat's dad. His eyes are all red and his nose too—you reckon you don't look too much better.

"I've come to get my cousin," he says, all stiff. "Please give him to me. Your services won't be required anymore."

"Services?" That ain't right. What's he talkin' about? "I'm not doin' services, bro, I haven't gotten paid in a long time. He's my friend."

He makes a little _tch_ noise through his teeth. "Karkat is a very troubled young boy, he is not old enough or responsible enough to determine who he should _or shouldn't_ be friends with. He is only eight—"

"He's _ten_," you say, sharper than you mean to—you're still groggy but you're wakin' up fast and your heart is beating real hard in your chest. "He had a birthday party a couple weeks before…before—" you don't say it. You can't say it. (Your chest hurts so fucking bad.) "…he was real proud. Told everybody how old he was. I didn't see you there."

"I'm his cousin Kankri," he says, even stiffer than before. "I've been given the responsibility of bringing him back to his mother. Now please give him to me."

"I can carry him back."

He looks scandalized.

"I'm his _cousin._"

"I know," you say, cold. Your head hurts. "You _said_. What, and that means you get to pick who he throws in with, who his friends are? Fuck that noise."

"You are carrying a _child!_" He snaps at you, "—watch your language please!"

"Kid knew the word just fine before I ever taught it to him, and he learned better from his dad," you growl back, and if you didn't have him in your arms your hands would be making fists, you're twitching-on-edge-angry and how could he watch your best friend go up there so brave and strong and say his piece without a single tear and still think he's a stupid, snot-nose kid? "—he listens to _everybody,_ just because he's little doesn't mean he's stupid!"

"_Mnhh…_"

Both of you freeze. Karkat shivers a little bit in your arms, blinks his sticky eyes (he's just as gross as you) and looks up at you.

"…_Gamzee,"_ he says, really really quiet, and presses his face into your neck. "…_you're too loud._"

"Sorry, little dude," you mumble, and pet his hair. He raises his arms up and puts them around your neck with a little sigh and it feels like you're going to die, you're going to just crumple over and _stop living_ you love him so much. "Sorry. We'll quiet down, okay?"

"We?" He groans and sits up a little, rubbing his eyes. "Who—"

He turns around and sees Kankri and you feel him go hard all over. He'd been relaxed on you, draped on all your hard corners—now he's suddenly a sharp angry block, holding on to you tight.

"Oh," he says, and his arm tightens around you a little more. "…hi."

"Hello, Karkat," says Kankri, and he's got this big stupid fakeass smile plastered on his face. "I'm here to take you back to your mother."

"Tell her we'll be right there," says Karkat, and he sounds twice his age. He doesn't like Kankri, you can tell. Well you got that in common.

"No, come here," says Kankri, and reaches for him. "—I'll—"

"If you touch me," says Karkat, very very quietly, "…I'm going to scream as loud as I can."

The shit-eating grin falls a little bit. "Karkat," says Kankri sternly—but he pulls his hands away again, ha. "Please do not make this difficult."

"Gamzee can take me back," says Karkat, and glares at him. "—I don't need anybody to take me anywhere. But I'd rather go with him than you. Fuck off. You talk too much."

"Karkat!"

"I asked you to go and you didn't, so I'm allowed to be rude now!" Karkat yells over him, and you let him slide down off you and turn around to face his cousin. He's getting so big. "I don't like the way you talk to me either, you think I'm stupid and it's a load of bullshit! Go—_AWAY!_"

Kankri goes. He throws you one of the nastiest looks you've ever seen, but you Karkat is turning back to you and there's things more important than his stupid-ass cousin and his fakey fake grins.

"I feel really bad," says Karkat quietly, and sniffs hard.

"Me too, little dude." You do—you feel sick, your head is pounding and your face and throat and chest hurt.

"…we should go back, though," he says, and scrubs his face on his sleeves. "…goddammit."

"Hey."

"I know!" he snaps—you both wince. "…sorry. Kankri makes me mad. Like, I want to swear when he's around just so he'll…"

"Yeah, I get it," you say—at least if he's gawping at you with that stupid shocked scowl, he's not doing that nasty too-big smile. "…Can't say I'm too fond of him myself," you confide, and he kinda half-laughs. "Okay, come on. Let's go take care of your mom."

The next few weeks are terrible.

Ms. Lin isn't the same as she used to be. She goes dull and sad and distant, she doesn't talk or smile or laugh, she just lies in her room and cries. Karkat's uncles are over a lot—the one with the red and blue glasses is nice enough, but he's tired and sharp and sort of…desperate. His other uncle is Kankri's dad. You like him, but Kankri grates on you worse and worse the more you have to deal with him.

It's four weeks after the funeral when you walk up to their big church-house and there's a guy in a cop uniform coming out, tall, hair that almost looks bright fuckin' white; looks strong, wearing weird dark glasses even though it's getting on sunset. He stops and looks at you, and you stop and look at him too.

"Are you Makara?" he asks, and the tone of his voice makes your guts sink a bit. Doesn't sound like he's looking to shake you by the hand. You want to hit him and run. You don't.

"Yessir."

"I wouldn't go in there if I was you."

Shit. _Shit._

"Why?" you ask, sudden and loud with the fear of it, "—what happened, is everything—?!"

"They're all fine," he says, and tilts his head down, crosses his shoulders. You can't see his eyes in the dark, just how pale and freckled his face is and the shocks of white-blonde he's got for hair. He's big, and the way he stands makes your neck prickle. You don't want to fight him (_you want to tear him up go on_ _just do it he's looking for a fight)_. "…but you shouldn't go in there."

"…why?"

"Because if you come here again, his family is going to take legal action," he says, cold and blank and firm. "Don't come near him anymore. Or you're going to have some trouble with the law on your hands, and I don't think you want that."

You just stare at him. Your chest feels hollowed out and cold.

You stare at each other for a few minutes, and then finally he seems to see you can't even motherfuckin' breathe, let alone move. He sighs and tilts his cap back so it doesn't shadow his eyes anymore, and he looks at you a little bit softer.

"Kid," he says, and he tilts his head a little for just a second so he can see a flash of you over the top of his sunglasses. His eyes look yellow and orange in the lamplight next to the sidewalk, but you don't care. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters. "…how old are you?"

"I…" it takes you so long to remember. "I, uh…Eighteen."

"How old is he?"

"Ten." (you played video games at his birthday party) "…just…ten and a bit."

"You should hang out some with friends your own age," he says, and you feel like he's watchin' you behind those glasses, reading how your face falls and your heart pounds painful in your chest. "…look. We've just had some reports you've been hanging around with him a lot, that's all. Just people who care about the kid, trying to keep him safe. It'd be a lot easier if you just walked away." He waits a second, then sighs. "…but you're not going to, are you?"

You can't find words, but he must see it in your face.

"…okay," he says, even, slow. "…why this kid?"

"…he…" you shake your head—words are so slow to come, you can't think straight, you're _scared_ and you don't know what to do— "…he…takes…care of me. And. And I take care of him and it makes me…." There's no word for how it makes you feel. You don't know what to say.

"…real," you finish, quiet and stupid and pathetic. "…he makes me feel all motherfuckin' real inside."

"If he was naked and asked you to touch him, would you?"

It's so sudden it blind-sides you—you choke at the wrongness of the thought. "Fucking hell, no!" you blurt, "—not except to put my shirt on him, but the kid knows better than that, god!"

"And you don't?"

"Jesus Christ," you say, weak, "Oh my god. I—he—I wouldn't—_god._ No!"

He stares at you from behind those shades for another long, long minute, and then slowly, breathes out.

"…I don't think you're lying," he says, and straightens his cap, neat and final. "…but if you are, I'm going to hunt you down and you're never going to be heard from again." He holds out a hand. You shake it, numb. What the fuck. "…Sorry, Makara. I think you do care about him, and I do actually believe it's not in a creepy-ass stalker kinda way, y'know? But it's their job to take care of their kid, not mine. So get outta here, and I won't tell anybody you were here in the first place. That's all I can do for you."

You should take it, you should take the deal and thank him for it, but you pause, wavering. He sighs.

"…I'll tell him you said goodbye," he says, quiet, and you're either about to puke or cry or both. "I'll tell him you loved him and you didn't want to go. Now get outta here, kid. You don't want your skinny ass in prison any more than I want to put it there."

You turn. You breathe.

You walk away.

You don't forget about Karkat Vantas.

You try—fuck, you try so hard. You try to throw away the things he made for you, the card he gave you once, the bracelet he tied on your wrist. You try. But there's a weird emptiness inside you and they're all that's filling it, and you think if you have to lose those too you're going to eat away from the inside out. You miss him yelling at you to eat and telling you stories about things neither of you had ever seen. You miss hanging out with his mom and dad and spending the night on their couch. You miss your best friend.

You keep count of his birthdays, keep the bracelet on your wrist, and you try to forget.

You start to get jobs eventually, because it's that or starve. You lost track of your dad and granddad a while ago, haven't heard from them—they just dropped off the face of the earth and you're still here. Sort of. You don't go back to drugs, though, however lost you are. You still remember how he looked at you, so you get another layer of ink for every year you stay clean, and you miss your best friend.

It's like how people pine in books, you figure to yourself, except you don't want him back to kiss him or…anything else. You just want back whatever is missing, whatever you gave him by accident that's missing from you now. He was like…like your son and your brother and your best friend, you guess, and now you've lost all three and your mom and dad in his parents, and what the fuck are you good for now?

Cleaning for whatever pay you can get. Whatever jobs you need to take to pay rent. Thinking about things too big and slow to put into words. You thought maybe you would go back to how you were those few weeks without him before, worried you'd end up in a little cell with nobody to help you out of it this time, but you haven't got nothing to fight for now and what fights you do have are few and far between and end with them running and you too tired and full of hate to follow.

By twenty-six you've got a job and you're under steady pay, working for a college and cleaning their dorms when people throw up or bleed on stuff or just spill food all over the entire hallway. Kids make a lot of mess, but they're pretty cool. You make a batch of new friends every year, even though you know most of the college kinda laughs at you. You're that one guy who cleans, smiles at everybody, that guy who everyone's pretty sure is stoned out of his skull, and everyone looks down on you a bit but that's okay because you deserve it. All except this one kid on the fourth floor who's studyin' to be a vet, and you're not kinda supposed to but you drop by and lean in his door and rap at him when you go past and he always stop studyin' to hang with you for a bit. He's real cool. It makes you feel shitty inside when you think he's going to graduate end of this year, but what the fuck is you feeling shitty supposed to do? Nothing.

You're there the night of freshman move-in day, picking up streamers at two in the morning, when the dorm's front door opens behind you and lets in a lot of wind and the sounds of someone yelling a lot.

You turn around, and see a kid—freshman, you think—trying to back through the door with three bags on each arm, cursing like a motherfuckin' sailor and elbowing at the door like he can bully it into doing what he wants. Pale skin, dark sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, tattoos on his arms and the back of his neck and plugs in both earlobes, like yours. You drop your cleaning stuff for a sec and wander over.

"Hey, little guy," you say, mellow, and feel the bracelet close and tight on your wrist. You can't ever call someone that without your heart stopping for just a second. You keep doing it anyway. "Let me help you with those."

He takes a break from swearing at the bags and the door to swear at you instead, still pulling at his bags. One of his handles is caught on the doorknob.

"I'm not _little_—" _Yank._ "—I don't need your fucking _help—_" _Tug—_ "—you ass-licking shit-fucking—_agh!_"

You just reached past him and unhooked the bag handle that was stuck. He tumbles over backwards and you catch him on one arm and a box of cereal in your other hand—and then drop it again as he flails at you, spitting words that don't even make any sense anymore. You get he's angry though, and you figure that's pretty much the point.

"Sorry, man," you say, and hold out the box of cereal. "Didn't mean…to…"

He blinks at you, all pale face and red cheeks and red eyes and dark hair, and there's a tiny red cancer symbol inked between his collarbones and you feel like you're falling.

"…I," you say, and he's staring right back at you, eyes going wide and red, all the flush going out of his face. "…I. Uh…"

He's staring at you like he's feeling the same way, like he doesn't want to breathe in case you go away, and he just takes a barely-there breath and lets it back out again.

"…Gamzee?"

You hug him so hard you lift him off his feet and spin him around. He flails a little bit but then he just wraps his arms around your neck and holds on tight and you laugh because it feels _the same._ It feels _exactly the same. (And you are going to just fall over and stop living from loving this boy_)

"_Best friend_," you say, and it feels just as good as you thought it would, all this time. "_—best friend. _Oh god. I—_fuck_."

"Oh. Shit," he says, and he pulls away and sort of pats awkwardly at your face. That's about when you realize your eyes are all wet. "—oh my god, you look almost exactly like I remember you, stop _crying,_ you enormous disaster."

"You do too," you say, and sniff hard. "—look the same, I mean, ha—ow." (He elbows you in the ribs. He's still so short, but he's tall enough to do that now.)

"I do not! I look a ton manlier! Look, come on." He starts to flex for you and then glances down and kind of turns red, starts to pull his sleeves down. You catch his wrist before he can, and take a look. They're pretty badass sleeves, as far as you're a judge. A stained glass window, suits of cards, wild animals, a bunch of weaving red sickle shapes, some green leaves and flowers you recognize from his mom's garden…

…he has the zodiac tattooed around his wrists.

He has the Capricorn sign on the inside of one wrist and Cancer on the other one and you're eight years older than him, you should not be the one with the watery eyes and the scratchy throat and the stuffy nose here.

"Oh my god," says Karkat, and keeps patting at your face kind of helplessly, half laughing—his eyes are all wet too, but he's doing better than you, like he always does. "—stop it, come on. Shhhh. How old are you, you're like thirty, why am I still taking care of you? _Shhhh._"

"Sorry."

He hugs you again. He's small and warm and solid and you bet if you tried you could still pick him up and hold him if he would let you, but you wouldn't try. Shit's not dignified. You kinda want to though.

" What's all this stuff?" you ask when he finally lets go, and he glances down and glares at his bags.

"Just a load of shit for my room," he says, and picks his bags up again. "…I didn't get a meal plan, I'm just gonna cram my fridge. There's an elevator, right?"

"Man, that thing's been hauling freshies up and down all day."

"So?"

"So that shit is way broken, man."

"Oh for fuck's sake!" Karkat kicks a bag and then doubles over spitting out curses—you look and it's got a doorstop in it. Figures.

"There's stairs," you offer, and reach down for some of the bags; he swats your hands away and picks them all up himself. "This way. What floor?"

"Fourth," he grumbles, and follows you.

You climb the stairs slowly, and you just stare at him—you have so many questions you can't figure out what to ask first. Finally you end up just coming up a little behind him and starting at the beginning.

"…so like…how is everybody?"

Karkat sighs a little bit—his shoulders hunch down.

"…mom…didn't last long, after dad died," he says, quiet. "…she just couldn't do it. Grandma died a few years ago, but she was pretty peaceful at least. I ended up with my uncle. And…" he grimaces, and that tells you all you gotta know. Living in a house with Kankri and his angry dad. Jesus.

"That fucking sucks," you say, and he laughs.

"Yeah." He hauls his bags up another few stairs. "Kankri's dad isn't too bad. He's kind of a douche but he's my kind of douche." He isn't looking at you—his voice drops and you have to lean forward to even hear him. "…I…missed you a lot."

Oh god, now your chest hurts.

"Missed you too," you say, because that's all you can say. "I didn't want to go."

"I know." He sniffs and hauls his bag up—third floor, his face is all red from climbing and maybe not just from climbing, and you love him. "…Dirk told me, he said."

There's a long second where you're both quiet and hurting, and then he coughs and sniffs again, hard.

"Kankri thought you were 'unhealthy'," he says, and shakes his head. "—fucking do-gooder. I punched him in the face before I left. He was still trying to feed me some line about how I wasn't old enough to make my own decisions and I was just like _dude I'm as old as you were when you made the decision to _report my best goddamn friend as a pedophile_, how about that_? Dad and mom and grandma made sure I had enough money to get through college before they died. I don't need him."

"Oh is that what he did?"

"Yeah, he figured you were touching me on my naughty bits when nobody was looking, and mom was too out of it to tell them you were better than that." Karkat makes a noise that's, like, half a laugh and half a growl. "—'s a load of bullshit, if there was anybody in that situation who wasn't qualified to give knowing consent it was you."

"Hey!"

"Well it's true. Besides." He throws a grin back over his shoulder at you, this fast little flash of a thing. "…I always let you keep your underwear on."

"We did have a motherfuckin' compromise," you agree, and stick out a hand behind him as he wobbles on the stairs and almost topples over. "…I'm taking some of those, give 'em here."

"No I got it."

"Nope." You reach over around him, grab three bags and tug them out of his hands. He squawks and grabs at them, but you're still way taller than him and you didn't stop being stronger either—you hold them out of reach over his head and he cusses you out and smacks you in the gut, but all that does is make you laugh some more.

His face still goes all red when he's mad at you and he's trying not to laugh as hard as he's trying to be mad at you, and then you reach the fourth floor and step off the stairs and he dives at you and scrabbles his fingers at your sides in all the spots he _knows_ are ticklish _goddammit_—you drop his bags on his head and he stumbles and slams into you and then it's just the two of you sprawled on the landing of the stairs in the middle of all his bags, laughing and wheezing like you're both kids again. He's laying half on top of you and it's not weird. You can feel him breathing and that's exactly how it should be.

"You were good for me," you tell him, when you can breathe again. "You were good for me, after I stopped being with you you were still takin' care of me. I'm not leavin' you again motherfucker, it'd kill me for sure."

"Of course I'm not letting you leave," he tells you, like that's not a stupid thing to say, like it's okay for you to be that selfish—"—I need you. You sure as fuck need me."

Your throat goes choked and tight at how easy he can say that, that everything you've been trying not to think for eight years—he notices, and the sure look in his eyes falls a little bit.

"I, uh." He was all relaxed; you can feel him tightening up, afraid he's done you wrong somehow. (_He's done you right, he's done you all the right in the world—_) "I mean. Sorry, that—that was a stupid thing to—_uhff—_!" You lunge down and grab him and pull him into a hug again, and he swats at you and squirms and then sighs and gives up and hugs you back.

"…uh…"

Something pushes at your leg. You're busy hugging your best friend though so you don't really even think about it until it nudges again and someone clears their throat and goes "Uh—!" again, a little bit louder.

You open your eyes—which are leaking, there's tears on your cheeks again, that's a little bit embarrassing with other people around but fuck, you don't care.

Oh hey, it's your vet-in-training buddy Tavros. You grin at him.

"Hey man," you say, kind of wet and shaky but grinning as wide as you've ever grinned. "Look, it's my best friend from all the way back, showed up out of the blue and all."

You've told him the story before—he looks confused and then surprised and then glad.

"That's good, and, uh…I'm really happy for you," he says, and leans forward in his chair as Karkat turns around, both of them getting a look at each other. "Is he—are you on this floor?"

Karkat is sniffing a little bit too, but he glares at Tavros kind of like he glared at you for a second before he knew who you were. "Yeah," he says, and it means a lot, it means a whole fuckin' lot more than you can say, that he doesn't try to make you stop holding on to him. "Who's asking?"

"I'm the, uh—sorry. I'm the RA," says Tavros, and waves, a little like he's afraid Karkat's actually mad at him, which he ain't. Little motherfucker has always made that face at new stuff, you can still remember how he crossed his arms and frowned at you the first night you met each other. "I'm Tavros Nitram. And you were making a lot of noise and it was echoing a lot so I came to ask you maybe to stop? But it looks like you have. So that's really not, uh…not necessary at this point."

Karkat busts out laughing. You think he's going to make fun of the name—which would be a touch of unkindness, ain't no more strange than any of the other people you've known and made friends with over the years—but he doesn't. He waves a little and flops his head back down on your chest.

"Hey, Tavros Nitram," he says, and his voice buzzes in your ribs and you laugh again. Everything is great. "…I'm Karkat Vantas. I'm going to make your life a living hell this year."

Not cool. You frown.

"Aw, bro—"

"No, it's okay," says Tavros, and bumps the door open a little bit further with his chair. He looks surprised but he doesn't look upset-like, so you don't mind. "I think…I think he's saying that he's the kid who's replacing my roommate. Since…since, y'know, since my last one left all of a sudden."

"Come on, you big disaster," says Karkat, and he gets up off you. You miss his warmth but he reaches down and you take his hand and that's okay. For now, that's enough. "Show me around. Give me the grand tour, one AM version. I've got time for some catching up. Do you have anywhere you need to be?"

"Bro," you tell him, and Tavros backs out into the hallway and you follow him, not letting go of Karkat's hand. "There is not any single motherfucking place I'd like better than here."

He socks you in the arm and Tavros starts asking questions to him about majors and classes and you hold onto your friends and you are the happiest man on earth. When you said you could take care of a kid for a dad of a friend of a friend of a friend while his parents were out of town for the night, this is definitely not what you were motherfuckin' expecting.

You wouldn't trade it for the world.


End file.
